To provide fair consideration: the position of creationists lacks any intellectual merit, and thus fallacious reasoning -- such as "guilt by association" and "argument against adverse consequence" -- are the only methods remaining, apart from outright lies (which are often utilized in constructing their fallacious arguments regardless), by which they can advocate their agenda.

Antimatter:Nope. Racial purity and such goes back far longer then evolution. To blame those atrocities on that is to have no idea what evolution does, and to ignore thousands of years of the same activities.

Yeah, IIRC Herbert Spencer was the one who came up with the phrase "survival of the fittest", not Darwin.

For what it's worth, most historians on the subject draw a very clear and direct link from Martin Luther (not King, Jr., btw, but the founder of Lutheranism) to Hitler based on his writings with such evocative titles as "On the Jews and Their Lies".

But, here's a fun little activity if anyone is interested. Download an English-translated copy of Mein Kampf, open it up and search for "evolution" and "God" and count to see which one shows up more. Also look at the context that surrounds each of the uses. Evolution shows up very infrequently, and never in reference to science, always in reference to just simply "change". God, on the other hand, shows up at a higher frequency and nearly always in a religious superiority or divine mission type of context.

Arkanaut:Antimatter: Nope. Racial purity and such goes back far longer then evolution. To blame those atrocities on that is to have no idea what evolution does, and to ignore thousands of years of the same activities.

Yeah, IIRC Herbert Spencer was the one who came up with the phrase "survival of the fittest", not Darwin.

Not only that, but Darwin was on record as hating that phrase. He preferred natural selection, which is a lot more accurate.

We allowed Southerners to survive the Civil War and to breed their ignorance into the present day. Southerners are like a disease; if you allow so much as one spore to survive, it'll come back to re-infect more nasty than ever.

Majick Thise:Hmm Hitler was a catholic turned protestant so I'm guessing no on that one. Can't speak to Stalin or his pot

Hitler's religion is kind of beside the point, to be honest. Catholics and Protestants have been very influential in developing evolutionary theory, and the notion that there is a necessary conflict between religion and science is a false dichotomy. But Hitler's attempt at genocide certainly has no support from natural selection, which is a theory about differential reproduction. If Hitler had actually read and understood Darwin, he would not have bothered trying to exterminate his "enemies," he would simply have encouraged the supposed "Aryans" to have more kids.

Stalin supported Lysenko, whose theories were fundamentally anti-Darwinian and had far more in common with Lamarck's notions. In fact, because of Lysenkoism, the field of genetics in Russia was held back for more than a generation.

I am not aware of Pol Pot ever even discussing the subject.

In any case, the notion that "the strong should kill the weak" or "violence is the supreme law of nature" is in direct conflict with Darwin's ideas, and derives much more coherently from Herbert Spencer's social theories than from anything in biology. Natural selection is all about who gets laid, not about who gets killed.

FTA: " Many nonreligious people recognize the truth of natural selection without collapsing into nihilistic despair; one need not reject the reality of evolution in order to live a meaningful, moral life"

Evolution, the vastness of the universe, etc. in no way lead to the loss of human dignity. This is a (faulty) moral, not a scientific conclusion.

Creationists frequently recycle bad arguments because they refuse to acknowledge error. They do no research on their own, thus new creationist arguments only arise when a new scientific finding emerges that may be misrepresented as somehow supporting a creationist position.

Hitler DID base a fair amount of his thoughts on the models and ideas brought forward by the American Eugenics Society. JP Morgan, Jr., William Kellogg, several founders of Planned Parenthood, were all members. Darwin's own son, Leonard wrote extensively and worked within the American Eugenics Society.

That being said, Darwin's observations about adaptation over time leading to divergent speciation were taken by many to mean a lot of different things. Man coming from monkeys being a popular trope, that has about as much basis in fact as my banging Felicia Day and Natalie Portman in a three way last night.

Marx would have been horrified at what was done with his work by Stalinists. What folks do with ideas is often far and away from the original work. Turning treatise on the origin of species into a raison d'être for the extermination of one's neighbors is not the fault of the author, but rather those who are looking for an excuse, and would like to have someone to back up their reasoning, to appear to be erudite and well considered. Sort of like looking to the Bible to excuse oneself for acting to deny folks rights and even their lives. Should we blame Catholicism for Hitler's rise as well? What about Stalin's own religious views? Pol Pot was raised a Buddhist, and thus we should attribute Teravada Buddhism for his crimes?

Darwin and his On the Origin of Species is often willfully misunderstood. About as often as Karl Marx's work, and Gods help me, even Ayn Rand's own work. Ayn still remains a vile example of a human, which she proved fairly often in her writing and her correspondence, but the foundations of Objectivism differ with Marxism and what has been dubbed Darwinism, in that they were based on published papers, and then those ideas were taken up by others, interpreted and used as inspiration for more work, while Rand was very much focused on making a living off the rubes that she convinced to make her their pet. Darwin and Marx were both scholars first, and their work was a foundation upon which others continued upon.

Like Darwin and Marx though, Rand has been taken as a symbol, and often scrubbed by those who would like to use her work to justify their own ends. Oddly enough, by Conservatives who routinely strip away her rejection of faith and religion of any sort, and ignoring what that rejection wrought within her own philosophy. Darwin and Marx, published scholarly work, that was interpreted and used and then taken up, and often willfully misquoted and skewed to meet their own agenda, in blatant disregard from the original work.

This isn't exactly a groundbreaking revelation, but it's important to put things in perspective, which Paul Johnson is trying to skew. His conclusions are very much based in a political agenda, as opposed to the role of biographer. He has an axe to grind, and is essentially looking to be a quote mill for others to use to back up their own agendas, while ignoring the real work, or the real man that he chose to focus upon.

Darwin's work wasn't an effort to secularize the world, nor was it an open affront to all that is Godly on this Earth, but a collection of observations that divorced themselves mysticism, and instead focused on what was readily apparent to those who would look at the world in an objective fashion. The ire, the vitriol, all that is focused on someone whose main "crime" was to look at things without imposition of preconception.

Pol Pot, as a Theravada Buddhist, one might at least point to that early education in looking to direct experience and a lack of blind faith, and at least argue that training led him down the road that he took. Likewise, one might also blame his rise to power on Napoleon II or the Jesuits. Looking to Darwin as a scapegoat is about as useful. Folks are looking for excuses, and they are looking for someone to blame, while ignoring the glaring inconsistencies in any sort of self examination.

Majick Thise:Hmm Hitler was a catholic turned protestant so I'm guessing no on that one. Can't speak to Stalin or his pot

How do we know he really changed? He could have stayed Catholic the whole time and history could have been adjusted by the winning side to spare the Church. There are plenty of links to Catholics and Nazis. Even today.

Sir Francis Galton - Charles Darwin's cousin. Galton was a mathematician and a sociologist who coined the term eugenics. Galton championed the idea of "negative eugenics" under which certain "undesirables" would not be allowed to breed under any circumstances. Hitler was a huge fan of Galton's work, and he made Galton's book, Hereditary Genius, required reading for the inner circle.

Galton was also the first person to use the word "normal" to describe those human beings that were unremarkable and lacking of any sort of potential to change the world in any way.

FloydA:Stalin supported Lysenko, whose theories were fundamentally anti-Darwinian and had far more in common with Lamarck's notions. In fact, because of Lysenkoism, the field of genetics in Russia was held back for more than a generation.

And let us not forget that a great many people starved to death due to Lysenko being a complete idiot who didn't know a damned thing about plants.

Darwin's concept of evolution had no set direction -no definitions of "forward," or "higher", or "superior"- the way Hitler's concept of dehumanization did. The one and only similarity is that they are both centered around accidents of birth: immutable characteristics of organisms, like species or ethnicity, and that similarity is largely a matter of happenstance.

The connections to Stalin, Pol Pot, and the like are even weaker. These dictators based their own concepts of dehumanization on beliefs, ideologies, religions: in other words, states of mind, which people can and do change from time to time. If we must draw parallels with models of evolution, they'd be closer to Lamarck than to Darwin.

Either way, these parallels are not useful. Darwin would have been horrified to see his ideas applied against different groups of human beings. No line of responsibility can be drawn.

AliceBToklasLives:FTA: " Many nonreligious people recognize the truth of natural selection without collapsing into nihilistic despair; one need not reject the reality of evolution in order to live a meaningful, moral life"

Evolution, the vastness of the universe, etc. in no way lead to the loss of human dignity. This is a (faulty) moral, not a scientific conclusion.

No, this is a failure of personal worth. These poor bastards have been convinced that they are born wicked, sinful, and condemned to Hell without the love and forgiveness of Jesus. Anything that threatens the existence of their God, as evolution does in its logical conclusion that Genesis is not historically true, is a threat to their entire sense of self-worth.

I see IDW is in the thread and will probably hang around and badger people. I've prepared a disclaimer for these occasions:

IDW is, essentially, the ultimate troll (with the only difference being that he's not a deliberate one). He's not interested in discussion -- he just wants to dick you around.

His MO is to seize control of the discussion and keep it, and the most basic way to do this is to withhold information from others and never acquiesce to any questions, comments or requests. By claiming some hidden truth that is beyond everyone's insight but keeping it undefined, he places himself in a role as Teacher or Guru or whatever fantasy Authority he imagines himself as. He doesn't mind arguing in his own backyard, but he'd much prefer to constantly hop from backyard to backyard, forcing you to chase him through separate, discordant arguments and fallacies of distraction. If you corner him, he'll usually chop your post up into little pieces and then reply to each piece individually with one these responses:

1) a question attacking your line of questioning, turning it back on you2) a loaded and nonsensical analogy which may include a dodge, misdirection, or introduction of additional and usually irrelevant subject matter or3) a sarcastic snipe at the subject and/or you (sometimes with image attached)

And then the chase begins again. There's no knowledge or wisdom to gain here (from either you or him) and he has no insights to impart. His questions have no purpose. He just wants to control you and force you to jump through his hoops that he will constantly move around on you so that you fail and he can claim superiority. You are wasting your time.

For an example, in this 3 year old thread he concocted a logic game similar to the wason selection test with rules that he could change at any time for any reason, foisted it upon the thread, toyed with the posters for a whole day while refusing to give the answer, and then eventually concluded that everyone was wrong.

It's part of his technique to constantly assume Authoritarian control. He gets off on giving people challenges and quests with no point other than so he can withhold the non-existent answers from them (like his "True Definition of Nature" theory -- he poses this riddle to everyone but there's no answer. He just enjoys watching people struggle). It's the old schoolyard power trip: "I know something you don't and I won't tell you what it is".

That he's been doing this schtick for so long is an indication that he will never stop and there's nothing new to be garnered from him, like he's stuck in a perpetual feedback loop, recycling the same arguments in every thread pertinent to his special brand of Christian theology (he's probably already posted the Wason test that he so infamously failed at solving many years ago. It's his way of dealing with the embarrassment by mocking it).

Despite the fact that he frequently loses these discussions, he'll continue posting them as if they're unsolvable, ignoring repeated and consistent replies defeating them. He has never been the type to swallow his pride and admit when he's wrong so you'll never get anywhere with him (and he'll always mock you if you try). It is very likely that he has NPD and people replying to him on Fark is how he strokes his ego so he can never stop no matter how many humiliating threads send him down in flames.

In short: He is a complete and total waste of your god damn time. Reply at your peril; I suggest ignore.--------------------------------------------------------------------- - --------------------------------------------------------

1. Social Darwinism is an off-the-cuff social science theory that was discredited basically as soon as it was articulated by actual science and philosphy, though it took until about the 1940s for that discrediting to stick with the public. It has nothing to do with Darwin, and its connection to Natural Selection theory is, essentially, nonexistent. Social Darwinism's relationship to Darwin is about the same as Scientology's relationship to Science.

2. Stalin explicitly banned the teaching of real evolutionary theory, especially natural selection, on the grounds that it wasn't marxist enough. Up through the damned 1980s universities in Soviet nations had to teach Lamarckian theory instead, a theory that was only credible for about a decade in the 1800s before it was soundly disproven.

3. Some of the racial supremacy movements did, in fact, base their bullshiat on evolutionary theory, but their grasp of it was about as good as that of a modern creationist, as you'll quickly discover by reading more than a line or two of that tripe. It was usually immediately clear that the basics of the statistical concepts involved were about ten years of education over the head of the politicians pushing that nonsense.

The worst that can be said of modern evolutionary theory is that it didn't noticeably improve human behavior. Since, conveniently, that's not in any way the purpose of science, no one has to care about this. People were still asshats when they worked out gravitational mechanics, when they realized the solar system was heliocentric, when the world being a sphere become common knowledge, when they realized you could make fire rather than get it from the sky, etc. I don't know why stupid people are holding basic biology up to that standard, other than the obvious (that they're stupid).